More observations on business and culture from an unofficial leadership anthropologist.
The lot of professionals inside many organizations can easily be characterized by a series of endless status meetings, hurried hallway conversations and messages quickly dispatched on a pda while walking, ignoring the meeting in process or consuming a protein bar on the run.
Space aliens observing from afar might get the sense of a hive type atmosphere with a seemingly endless amount of activity, but almost no perceived vector. Clearly people fawn over those with power, but the output of all of this fawning and excessive movement might not be visible to these distant observers. Nonetheless, work gets done, customers are served and growth often created. I do however, worry and wonder about the human costs and the cost to the organization in lost-ideas, missed opportunities and a much more superficial existence.
If you work in one of these fast-paced cultures, the issue of finding time to focus on people and strategic priorities is a true struggle. The problem is compounded if you get caught up in the common notion that success equates to being perceived by the right people as busy.
Beware the Micro-Transaction Trap:
I’ve noticed a tendency for some in hive type cultures to get caught up in achieving a maximum number of touches per day. The goal becomes one of earning attendance to meetings where you need to “be seen,” and minimizing the amount of time that you spend on any one topic. Deep thinking is not promoted, because you are too busy engaging in micro-transactions. These are quick sound-bite type engagements where surface topics are covered and conversations on deep issues forestalled for another time.
Another Way:
I contrast the micro-transaction or hive style culture with my own experiences working and partnering with a number of different U.S., Asian and European organizations, where thinking time is valued, and discussions are typically allowed to run a useful course…one not dictated by the next entry in an Outlook calendar.
While I cannot say conclusively whether these more deliberate organizations are more successful than their hive-like counterparts, they are all market leaders and they do well retaining and developing employees.
What I can say from personal observation and interaction is that this more deliberate style certainly seems more humane, more enjoyable and to me, one heck of a lot more productive on the right issues. Strategic issues are tackled, learning takes place and coaching and nurturing of talent is a focal point.
5 Reasons Why Lack of Focus Extracts a Toll Personally and Organizationally
1. Speed drains and kills. Constant movement and micro-transactions draw upon instinct and adrenaline. Survival is the goal, movement is required and it becomes habitual. There’s no deep processing going on in this constant sense and respond environment. Frankly, I want some deep thinkers on my team.
2. Excessive focus on pace squeezes out good leadership practices. A key to successful leadership is finding time to focus on others. While sometimes the army is engaged, and sense and respond are required for a period of time, eventually, there must be an opportunity rest, reflect, learn, plan and reset. An always on, micro-transaction culture is a formula that promotes leadership ineffectiveness and rapid troop burnout.
3. All activity, no vector equals poor or suboptimal results. A lot of activity and no vector is a huge waste of physical and mental energy. Strategy sets the vector, and unless this strategy is clear to all, the motion is for show, not for go or dough. Lack of focus extracts huge opportunity costs from an organization.
4. The criteria for getting ahead are off-key. If it’s required to be constantly visible to the people in power to succeed, frankly, the leadership is fatally flawed.
5. Unbridled speed accelerates mistakes. Speed is a powerful motivator and a false god. Speed creates waste and allows mistakes to run further faster. The effective use of speed is a different story. (I have a great podcast interview coming up with Jocelyn Davis, one of the co-authors of Strategic Speed, where this notion of effective speed is shared in detail.)
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Speed kills, and so does inaction compounded by over-analysis. There must be a happy medium or at least a workable balance of speed and activity with the slow, thoughtful dialogue that leads to new ideas, performance improvements and effective coaching. If you live and work in a hive type atmosphere, you’ve got a tough task, but one worth fighting for on a daily basis. Learn to slow down and focus at least once a day.
So many of us fall into the trap of doing all the “urgent unimportant” things. That leads to the abundance of chaotic activity you describe, and the diminution of high quality results in the truly important things. I’d write more, but I have to be seen at a twenty-person meeting to change the lightbulb in the reception are.
How right you are, Eric, and make certain that the “right” people see you change the bulb! Thanks for writing and sharing. -Art
You are absolutely right, speed does kill. A good read on stress and its far-reaching implications is a study by Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky, a professor of biology and neurology at Stanford or watch a portion of this study beautifully illustrated on a National Geographic special that can be ordered called, “Killer Stress”.
On the other hand, teaching the art of slowing down and focusing is a subject that begs for attention. Your post was on the mark and I am sure most people now have a better understanding of the rat race that generates a paycheck. But how many of them “know how” to slow down and focus at least once a day? That is an art and discipline in itself. Some may think having a martini lunch is slowing down and focusing, but is it the best way? And others may lie in bed at night focusing on whether or not they can face another day of the rat race. I could easily go on and on as this is one of my favorite subjects as you know, but I am sure you have the gist of what I am saying. I need to go now and find the balance to keeping my stress in check.
Thanks, Pat! I’ve had several readers say, “O.K., I get it, now how do I do it.” Perhaps a guest post…?! Thanks for sharing the resources- Art
This is a topic that needs to get reintroduced into organizations and society. Over the decades, speed has been increasingly enforced. A simple example is communication, where now someone can quickly type up an email and send it off as opposed to sitting down and thinking about the words to write in a letter.
While speed can be positive, people also need to realize the positive aspects of slowing down. I’ve noticed that the best work comes after taking the time to think about different ideas and having the time to build off of those ideas rather than offering the first idea that came to mind.
Thanks for allowing me to slow down and read your post.
“Learn to slow down and focus at least once a day.” I totally agree with this sentence since you can save time and energy if you spend enough time to find what you are gonna do next and how could you achieve your goal before you immediately start indulging in your work.
Jennifer and Patrick, thanks for reading and commenting. It is easy to forget to slow down once in awhile and our culture or working environments don’t always allow for it, but what a difference it can make in performance! -Art
I work in IT (in-house web development specifically), and I don’t have enough fingers to count the number of times I’ve had to make an about-face on what I was doing because management believed they were “taking too long.” However, the delays were caused by problems in the organization, its structure, and its lack of true leadership. I was an army of one at one particular company, and as such had to deal with every important but non-catastrophic website issue, such as correcting customer subscriptions for the umpteenth time. As this sometimes took up to 60% of my day, my projects were delayed. Furthermore, some of the concepts that we were trying to accomplish required us to research how to do them, which ate up more time. Add a boss who believed that any project was a 3-hour, -day, or -week long endeavor and whose mind would change at the drop of a hat, and it was easy to see why there were a myriad of half-completed projects when I left the company. Any sort of clarification meeting or plan were foreign concepts there, which only contributed to the chaos. I’m glad we at least have some meetings where I am now so that we *can* slow down and plan our next steps accordingly.
I could not agree more! I am a recent college grad and I can not tell you how many of my friends complain to me about just such an atmosphere in their workplaces. There is more weight put on the number of tasks completed and amout of meetings/events they attend rather than the quality of there work or participation at such meetings/events.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Ashley. It seems in some cases, like there is an industrial revolution or post WWII “success=volume” mentality. It is often a function in my opinion of flawed performance metrics developed based on small picture thinking. -Art
Thank you for this great blog post, Art! Speed kills is the truth. We have created a generation of multi-tasking, attention-lacking management professionals. Not only are they in meetings for ‘face time”, but they are reading their email/facebook/twitter during the meeting. Sadly, it doesn’t stop there. The same professionals are going home and reading from their PDA during dinner hour, resulting in a lack of quality time with their families and even more brain drain.
I was recently watching a news segment where Google requires (!) employees to take one day of work per week and work on a creative project that is not related to their general scope of work. What a great way to give your brain a rest and generate fabulous ideas!
Casey, the Google approach is also something that 3M has popularized for years. We can all take a lesson from these companies. And yes, the technology addiction issue is very real for many. Frankly, I have to discipline myself to turn it off and focus…because it is so easy to become preoccupied with it. Thanks so much for writing and sharing here, Casey! -Art
I totally agree. I have seen countless examples of individuals (management personal at multiple levels) scurrying from meeting to meeting with the pedal constantly floored. Then in turn when issues arise in the organization that are seemingly not that complex and could have simply been solved with minor preparation and thought, they are perplexed as to how it occurred.
I think you hit it on the head with trying to find the balance between the work that needs to occur day to day and the idea generating, problem solving, rational idea generating that takes time to cultivate. Just because there are 1,000 ideas generated does not mean that any are good. 10 good, sound, well thought out ideas outweigh 10,000 bad ones any day.